AXELROD NEWSREEL STORIES I

Synopsis

(16B/second series) July/August 1946: With the leadership of the Jewish Agency imprisoned by the British on 29th June 1946 (called by the Jews 'Black Sabbath') Golda Meir was in acting command of the Jewish Agency. As an act of defiance she ordered the establishment of eleven new settlements in the Negev desert in the South. The purpose of the new settlements was to claim the Negev for the Jews when partition came up - to stake claim to the desert region of the South as part of Eretz Israel inhabited…

(16B/second series) July/August 1946: With the leadership of the Jewish Agency imprisoned by the British on 29th June 1946 (called by the Jews 'Black Sabbath') Golda Meir was in acting command of the Jewish Agency. As an act of defiance she ordered the establishment of eleven new settlements in the Negev desert in the South. The purpose of the new settlements was to claim the Negev for the Jews when partition came up - to stake claim to the desert region of the South as part of Eretz Israel inhabited by Jewish Settlements.

(17A/second series). August/September 1946: New settlement in the North around the Sea of Galilee called Kibbutz Bitania, again extending the boundaries of the Jewish area, this time to the north. Shimon Peres (later Defence Minister of the State of Israel) talking to the kibbutzniks.

(18F/second series) January 1947: Refugees who had been rounded up by the British as "illegal" immigrants and deported to Cyprus were released at the end of 1946 from Cyprus and allowed to travel to Palestine as a gesture of conciliation. They are welcomed at Haifa and taken by bus to an Absorption Centre at Kiryat Shmuel.

(18G/second series) January 1947: Scenes of Tel Aviv under martial law and strict curfew. Empty streets, empty bus station as British troops of 6th Airborne Division patrol and check papers of those on the streets.

(20A/second series) May 1947: May Day celebrations in Tel Aviv. The May Day rally was one of the very few Jewish mass meetings allowed by the British and under the guise of a labour holiday came protest and demonstrations and demands for free immigration. Street processions, floats, bands.. Levi Eshkol (later Prime Minister of State of Israel) leads the band in the second shot. Banners read: "Unity of Workers - Solidarity with Arab Workers", "Free immigration", "Jewish State", "Settlement of the Land". MayDay posters.

Extracts from a series of newsreels produced for the Jewish audience in Palestine, 1929-1947.

Notes

Documentation/associated material: Axelrod catalogue (held in photocopy form by Film and Video Archive).

Remarks: for an explanation of the thinking behind the establishment of the new settlements in the national homeland, see the interviews with Yosef Avidar (PAL 152) and Dr Ranaan Weitz (PAL 281).

Production Credits

Countries

The Colonial Film website is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and features films from the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.